Crimson
by They-Call-Me-Orange
Summary: Palex. TW: domestic abuse. After a fight with Chad, Alex turns to Paige for comfort.


_Disclaimer: **I owneth not**_

**Title: **"Crimson"._ Why? 'Cause I said so._

**Genres: **_General, Angst _(with a few semi-romantic undertones)

**Rated: **'T'_ for abuse and other serious-like things…_

**Writing Tools: **_Windows Media Player, Microsoft Word, Doc Evil (even if he doesn't know it), some Starbucks-y Frappuccino, and, uh… I can't remember anymore._

**Tunes: **_Believe it or not most of this was done in relative silence. Although certain songs help you get in that Palex-y mood. _("Calling All Cars" - Senses Fail / "The Darkside" - L.P. / "Hurt" - Nine Inch Nails, and a few others)

**People: **_Me. All by my lonesome. _

**Author's Note: **Different, Disjointed, Lateral, Unedited - All words that can be used to describe what I've posted. It's 2:30 at night and maybe I should have waited until morning and re-examined it but y'know what? I like the weird.

Oh, yeah, it's a Oneshot - for now. Continuation depends on the kind of reviews I get.

-Orange

* * *

_Breathe._

(Just breathe, dammit.)

She can feel every fiber of the shit-brown carpet against her cheek as she lies there. The smells of split booze, and weed, and piss are as tangible as the scratchy tendrils of fabric. Her head hurts. _God_ her head hurts so bad.

She tries to remember how she ended up there, on the floor but her mind is slow. Slow like… like cold honey. Slow like rolling fog…

Fog. There must have been some in her head. That's why it was so hard to think. Hard to remember.

Did she even _want _to remember?

_Alex closed her eyes and forced her muscles limp. It always hurt more if you tensed up. As prepared as she tried to be the blow caught her off-guard. It always did._

_She was on the ground as quickly as she registered the strike; white pain exploding behind her eyes. Her head came in contact with the carpet _(it felt more like concrete) _with a sickening thud that sounded through her ears like a gunshot. Surely her skull had cracked: split right down the middle. Soon her brain-matter would ooze out of her ears and right into the damned piss-and-beer choked carpet. Staining it a shade darker._

(The color of a dead man's heart.)

_She tasted rust and her tongue suddenly seemed swollen and useless; as if it were made of cotton. Pain still ripped through her temples and her cheek felt as if it would sink in. She knew the blood vessels beneath the skin had burst. The bruise would be large, and ugly, and painful. Perhaps it would be the color of the dried grape-juice Paige had spilt on Alex's shirt an eternity ago. When things were still all right._

_There was a sharp pain in her side as Chad's Adidas came into contact with her stomach. She coughed and her lungs felt entirely too small. A mixture of blood and bile spilled from her mouth and onto the carpet. Some of it got on Chad's shoe. It turned the dirty yellowish white into a shade of auburn. He cursed and brought the foot into her ribs. She wondered if she'd only imagined the sick cracking noise._

_He was screaming now, positively livid; but she couldn't make out the words. Just harsh, angry syllables with no beginning and no end and no meaning. Things were starting to spin and darkness was creeping in from the edges of her vision. She rasped, one hand clutching the carpet and tried to breathe. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. Consciousness was over-rated. Vaguely she knew she shouldn't allow herself to pass out. _You'll get a concussion,_ something inside her reasoned, _you'll get a concussion and you'll die.

_Alex was starting to think that death wouldn't be as bad as the screaming pain in her head. She heard another voice. Her mother, probably. Emily was screaming, too. And then Chad was screaming louder. And then, the sound of flesh striking flesh._

_A sob. More screaming. Smack. Grunt. Whimper. Thud._

(End this.)

_She felt sick and tired. Sleep was calling her and it sounded so beautiful. A quiet sort of peace. _Rest your head, Alex_, it said, _close your eyes and leave this place._ But she couldn't. Not with Chad still hitting her mother. She tried to push herself up off the ground. Her head was pounding. Surely it would burst. It would dye the walls a deep red. Seep straight throw the carpet, and the walls and out into the street, the sky. Turning everything a brilliant crimson. Crimson was the color of Alex's eyes when she cried after she broke up with Paige. Crimson was a hateful color. And it tasted like sorrow._

_She struggled to rise, but never fully made it off the ground. Her mouth and brain worked furiously to form a coherent phrase. Her big, useless, cotton tongue lolled idiotically as she tried to speak. She forced the syllable from her mouth and it thudded to the floor like a dead body, her cotton tongue tripping lamely over the suddenly too-complex word. It might have been a "stop". It could have even been a name. "Chad" maybe? "Mom"? Perhaps a "Paige"._

_But the useless noise was not worth the trouble it had caused. Chad rounded on her, eyes glazed with too many shots of whiskey. Too many nights wasted. Too many years in Hell. He sneered and spoke. She tried to understand him but could hear nothing over the furious din in her head. Dark spots appeared in her vision._

_Shouldn't she have been asleep?_

_She had wanted to do something._

_Her mother, maybe._

_She probably wanted to say something to her mother._

_When was the last time they exchanged "I love you"s?_

_She saw Chad's yellow-white Adidas rising and decided that she hated both the color and the brand._

_Then pain claimed every one of her senses. She tasted it. Smelled it. Saw it. Heard it. And Felt it. Boy, did she _feel_ it…_

_The world turned a bright crimson before everything began to go black._

_And all Alex could think about was how much she hated that color._

She draws another shaky breath, wincing at the action and exhales slowly. Rolling her head she tentatively opens her eyes. She blinks when she realizes they had already been open. She tries to focus but the pain in her head is constant and sharp and it clouds her vision. The fog in her head is thick and poisonous.

It's light out. She can see the sofa - zebra-striped with sunbeams. It's empty. She's alone.

Is it bad that she feels safer when she's alone?

_Breathe_.

Much easier said than done.

Her mouth tastes like iron and vomit and she feels sick. She hopes desperately that she doesn't throw-up because breathing is hard enough and heaving would surely kill her. Her throat burns. It feels as if she's swallowed razorblades. She can hear her heartbeat. It sounds impossibly loud. A big, bass drum between her temples. Why was it so far up? Maybe Chad had jolted it into her skull when he had kicked her. She tried to muster up enough energy to hate him but decided she was too tired to hate.

Suddenly she didn't feel safe.

She felt terribly lonely.

_Breathe._

She closed her eyes and counted slowly. She got to seven before she rolled onto her side and heaved all over the floor. There was blood in her vomit. She turned her head away and tears leaked from her eyes. The pain was like a knife to the chest. Sharp and deadly and unbearable.

(Oh my God, I'm going to die.)

_Breathe._

(I'm going to die)

_Breathe._

(Going to)

_Breathe._

(Die…)

There was a crash from her Mother's bedroom.

"Fuck!"

That was Chad. That was definitely Chad.

She could _not _be here.

She prepares herself for the pain as best she can but her head still swims when she forces herself standing. Dark spots appear out of nowhere and the room begins to tilt; but it's nothing compared to the overwhelming rush of nausea and agony that crashes into her in waves. The ache is incredible. It swamps her completely; overwhelming every sense and making it impossible to think. She's going to fall backwards. She's going to land on her back and her brain will rattle in her skull loudly. So loud that Chad will hear and he'll come out and he'll finish what he started last night.

(What would the tombstone say?)

But she staggers blindly forward, her hands grope wildly and flail for a terrifying moments before they find the wall and she leans all her weight onto it. But she can't breathe. She gasps and claws the ragged wallpaper and tries to force air into her lungs.

_Breathe._

(oh god oh god oh god)

She hears more noises from her mother's room.

"Alex?" she can't tell if it's her mother or Chad, "Lexi is that you?"

She coughs and gasps. Shuddering as she clutches the doorknob and flings it open. She stumbles out into the hallway, still clutching the doorknob so that when she finally releases to keep herself from falling to the ground the forward momentum causes the door to slam shut behind her.

"Lexi!"

The voice is slurred, and furious, and undeniably male. She forces herself up and runs forward, tripping over her own clumsy feet, and crashing into walls. Her split-lip re-opens and the taste of blood redoubles in her mouth. But she's beyond the point of caring. She feels it dribble past her lips but makes no move to wipe it off. She runs as quickly as she can to get as far away from there as possible. The only thing she can think of is breathing.

As she bursts through the door into the harsh, fading sunlight and stale air the blood spills from her mouth and onto her hands.

Staining them a deep, hopeless crimson.

* * *

**Closing Notes: **_I thought about continuing it. But I decided not to. There's still hope for another chapter, or maybe (should inspiration strike again) I'll turn it into a series of one-shot-type-things. Let me know what you guys think._

_Review __or I'll borrow my ex girlfriend's music and go emote in a corner._

_-_Orange


End file.
